day 8

More mortise and tenon of the haunched and through-wedged varieties today. 

I learned how to use a different machine to cut the through-tenon mortise, because the horizontal borer was making me nervous after it caught a couple of times while I was cutting the mortise for the haunched tenon. 

I broke down a big piece of (really, really ugly and torn out) poplar today into pieces for a carcase doweling exercise we'll go through on Monday. The processed and resawed pieces need at least a few days to acclimate to the ambient moisture, It's all stickered out under my bench right now. I've never so judiciously stored and seasoned my wood before. I like this aspect of planning out the project though, since in addition to getting rid of most surprise-wood-movement, I have to make sure I have all of my pieces roughly dimensioned.

Poplar on sticks

I'm kind of "let's see what happens after this next logical step," so I don't really have everything planned out that far in advance, especially in terms of dimension. I usually have to see it before I decide. I can't think abstractly or conjure images of what 3/8" thick looks like. 

I think I'm getting really tired at this point. Hanging for dear life while mortising probably did me in. I'm starting to make stupid mistakes (like forgetting to accommodate for the flare when I wedge the tenon in my mortise width). I'm sure there's a fix; I'm fairly certain I won't like the gymnastics involved, though. My left hand is developing that weird thumb thing and I can feel it doing the death-grip even when I pick up a pen. I once tried to prevent this by teaching myself to saw right-handed. I got too much jibing in the shop to keep going (at least in public). But I really wish I were more ambidextrous right now. 

We're learning dovetails tomorrow. I saw David milling up our maple stock for tomorrow and I have a suspicion that the dovetail saw I brought is way too big.